Thinking of You – Get Well Soon – From All of Us – Basic Grey Grand Bazaar Card Idea with Lawn Fawn Hedgehugs Hedgehogs

 

 

This card is very special and I’m very proud of it. I made this card for a workmate and his son who is very ill and has had the sickness since he was very young. The son is only 13 years old and the dad is very hardworking. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 so I know how hard it can be constantly going to the hospital for treatments, the stress it can put on family, and the financial strain.

The dad is the sole earner as the mother is caring for the son. As such, I would expect that they wouldn’t have a lot of spare money to waste on entertainment as a lot of the funds would go to medication and treatment. My idea was to take $1 and $2 donations from the other employees at work (as that’s only like a chocolate bar) and it would all add up and then we could get a gift card so the son could buy a video game.

Everyone’s really jumped on board this idea a lot more than what I originally thought and the bosses have said that whatever the employees raise they’ll match it, which is really incredible!

 

For the design, I started with a base white card, standard size, and I cut a strip and two squares of Basic Grey Grand Bazaar pattern papers from the Grand Bazaar Card Kit. This is inspired by a Becky Williams design which is included in the kit. I did have to alter it to suit quite a bit though. In the card kit supplies are envelope pockets and there were only 2 spares after taking into account all the designs, which I really want to try them all so didn’t want to use up. The 2 spare pockets weren’t in a pattern that I wanted or looked good with the front design of the card.

So I took a 12 x 12″ sheet from the papers I have stored and I unstuck the glue of the pocket size I wanted and laid it flat on top of the 12 x 12 inch sheet and I cut around the edges. After cutting it out, I used the Chomp-a-Dile Corner Cutter to make the corners rounded and then I used the Martha Stewart Score Board and the bone scorer to score lines to fold the sheet into the pocket. I adhered the pocket together and voila!

I decided I wanted to use the two foil arrows spare from the card kit and I had the idea of embossing ‘from all of us’ onto the pocket. As the pattern paper was dark, I decided to use a strip of vellum which I wrapped around it and adhered at the back.

Next I stamped the two adorable little hedgehogs from the Lawn Fawn Hedgehugs Stamp Set using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. I stamped the ‘thinking of you’ speech bubble using what I thought was Spiced Marmalade but what turned out to be Pickled Raspberry. The lids had somehow become mixed up. I had to stamp the Spiced Marmalade twice in order to get the really full colour. The stamp is from Lawn Fawn Chit Chat set.

I also have the dies for the hedgehogs and the speech bubble so I placed them over the stamps and held them in place with washi tape. After that I ran it through my Big Shot to die cut them out.

After colouring the hedgehogs using my Faber Castell Connecter Pens, I went to adhere the hedgehogs to the card, however the hedgehogs and sentiment did not look good simply on top of the rectangles so I decided to add a space for them to sit. I used the Sizzix Stackable Circles Dies and I cut out a larger circle from the yellow Grand Bazaar paper and a smaller circle from the blue pattern paper also from the Grand Bazaar 6 x 6 pad. I adhered the blue circle onto the yellow circle off center and then I adhered the circles to the center of the card. Then I adhered the hedgehogs and the sentiment and the golden foil arrow all onto the circles. I think it looks great!

 

Finally, I used the new orange embossing powder for the ‘from all of us!’ sentiment on the vellum. This sentiment is from the Lawn Fawn On The Mend stamp set. And I used the second gold foil arrow to start the sentiment. Then I cut a whole bunch of strips of paper so that all the people that donate can write their names on the strip. And the pocket will hold all the names and the gift card. This is very exciting and I can’t wait for everyone to finalize their donations so it can be handed to him.

Greeting Card – Basic Grey Grand Bazaar Card Idea – 6×6 Papers & Die Cuts with Simon Says Stamp Sentiment

 

This card I made for my Grandma just as a general greeting card as she sent me card and I needed to send her a card in reply. I started by using some of the scrap pages from the card I made for my workmate, you can check that out by clicking here. And I used the Sizzix circle cut dies with the smallest die and I cut and cut out nine circles from different pattern papers. The yellow pattern paper was actually a plain yellow and I’ve used a Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Seedless Preserve to stamp the circle ‘hello’ stamp inside. The ‘hello’ stamp, the cursive ‘sending’ and the ‘lots of love’ sentiment are all from the same stamp collection from Simon Says Stamp ‘Better Together’.

 

I used embossing ink to stamp the ‘sending’ and lots of love’ and then used black embossing powder and heat set it using the Ranger Heat It Craft Tool. After that base of the card was done, I used the embellishments from the Grand Bazaar dies and transparencies pack that I had in my stored collection and I went nuts and had a lot of fun layering the elements.

And that’s it! I’m really pleased with this one, the simpleness and ease of construction merged with the brightness of the papers and the fun of putting all the elements together. This was a great card to make and I’m excited to try this design idea out again.

Basic Grey Clearance Warehouse Box Haul Shipment Package

For midyear, Basic Grey had another Warehouse Clearance Box sale. I was lucky enough to grab one of these for Black Friday and whoo boy was excited for another chance as that Black Friday box was pretty epic. I was so stoked as the boxes are loaded with goodies and it’s a saving of $100’s of dollars.

Basic Grey really spoiled me with this haul. I got little snippet journalling cards from the Highline Collection, a set of stamps, alphas, borders, posies, buttons and lots of bling!

Now for the really exciting part, this really blew me away and I was so happy with the items that had been chosen for me. Did I mention that I have no idea what I get? Basic Grey just fill a box up with random goodies, you have no choice in what you get. I love that part of the sale too, as I get a surprise! It makes the unboxing that much more thrilling!

Look at how thick that stack of scrapbooking papers is! I received so many papers from many collections which I’ll picture all below. I received lots of elements stamps which are like $6 each! Amazing! And not only that I got not one, but two card kits! I love card kits, especially for the design ideas, but I was especially excited for the Grand Bazaar card kit as Grand Bazaar is hands down one of my top, favourite ever, Basic Grey collections. I’m too lucky!

So I’ll start with the papers! Three papers from the Mint Julep Collection. I have quite a few papers still left over from the Mint Julep Collection I got on sale at Spotlight, so I’ll probably add these papers to that.

Three papers from the Herbs & Honey Collection. I love that yellow/gold pattern paper.

Two scrapbook papers from the Spice Market Collection.

Four papers from the Second City Collection designed by Kelly Purkey a great source of scrapbooking inspiration and knowledge. I love the colours in the collection and super stoked to have gotten one of the journal card pages.

Two pattern papers from the 25th & Pine collection. I’m going to store these away ready for Christmas. I would like to do some really neat and special layouts for Christmas this year!

I wasn’t as excited for these two papers from the Fresh Cut Collections, but that’s only because I still have about 50 pages from this collection left from when I went nuts on Fresh Cut supplies for my scrapbook journal I was doing. I filled the journal up and I have heaps of supplies left. I’m thinking of making a second journal to use up those papers. It’ll just mean I’ll have a couple gap months between journal 1 and journal 2, but I think that’ll be fine.

Three pattern papers from Carte Postale. As nice as these papers area, they don’t actually inspire me much. I’ll have to have a good think about what I’m going to do with these ones.

Five papers from the Soliel Collection. Really digging the bright colours and love the blue and yellow pattern papers. I can see those two being used as bright backgrounds for a couple of layouts.

One pattern paper from Kelly Purkey’s Mon Ami Collection and one pattern paper from the Capture collection. I think these will be very versatile and useful papers.

Four papers from the RSVP Collection. I think I’ll put these papers together with some mini kits. I’m going to have to crack open the rest of my scrapbooking supplies and put some more kits together. Putting the kits together also helps spur some inspiration and project ideas.

Four pages of the Evergreen Collection another one of Basic Grey’s Christmas Collections. Again these papers will be going away into storage along with the 25th & Pine papers.

Three Basic Grey Grand Bazaar papers. Super happy to get some more of these papers. I want to finish recreating some of Kelly Purkey’s designs from her Craftsy Course – as with everything, it’s about finding the time.

Five papers from the Highline Collection. Again, super stoked about these pattern papers. I actually wanted to get this collection to do some layouts with my crafting friend as I think these patterns would be right up her alley.

I have quite a few Persimmon papers already, getting most of them in a previous Basic Grey sale and also snagging the Collection Kit for around $10 so I’ll probably add these in with those as spares.

I was surprised to get these three papers. Even though there’s only one of each as these are from the more recent collections, I wasn’t expecting to get any papers from these three collections: Adrift, Aurora and Vivienne.

And lastly to finish off the papers, one more from Kelly Purkey’s Mon Ami Collection and one sheet from the Capture Collection. I think this scrapbook page is really awesome as it has lots of elements I’ll be able to cut up and use.

This is the contents of the Herbs & Honey Card Kit: 6 x 6 pattern paper pad, brads, bottle caps, title stickers and a design sheet by Arielle Gordon. There’s enough supplies to make one of each of the cards.

This is the contents of the Grand Bazaar Card Kit: 6 x 6 pattern paper pad, title stickers, foils, envelopes/pockets and a design sheet by Becky Williams. I really like the simple and clean designs. As with the Herbs & Honey Card Kit, there’s enough supplies in the Grand Bazaar kit to make one of each card.

And finally the wowzer. Twelve sets of element stickers including ones from recent collections such as J’Adore and Vivienne. The other collections are: Fresh Cut, Jovial, Clippings, Paper Cottage, RSVP, Highline, Grand Bazaar, Herbs & Honey, Spice Market and Capture.

To summarize, I could not be happier with the selections made by the Basic Grey staff and I’m super grateful that I was able to snag one of these epic deals. I won’t have to get any scrapbooking supplies for years!

Painting Pet Portraits – Jakob’s Birthday Present 2015 – Dog Paintings & Birthday Card

Although I wasn’t able to finish the portraits of Jakob’s pets, I was able to complete Jakob’s birthday card on time!

Growing up, us kids (and even my mother to an extent) were all Halo buffs. The Halo I’m talking about is the video-game series that has spawned an entire universe including 20 novels, live-action movies, tv-series and anime-series and multiple fan made series using the game engine. It’s won awards for its story-line/script and music. The main character of the Halo series of games is the Master Chief who is a Spartan, taking from the legend of the original Sparta Spartans, you know the 300 etc, warriors bred for war.

The Spartans in the game were taken as children, genetically enhanced and trained for combat. It’s a really epic story line, so if you haven’t read the books or played the games or seen any of the shows I really recommend them. If you’re no good at games, chances are someone you know plays and loves the series so just watch them play to get the story-line (that’s what my mum did – she watched us play. She’d get grumpy if we continued the story without her haha!)

Anyway, a big part of the Master Chief’s story is the fact that he does not surrender, he does not give up, he will defy the odds and he will win to save humanity. I think my older brother really admires that tenacity and pugnaciousness. So that’s the inspiration behind this card.

I used papers from the Basic Grey Kelly Purkey’s Second City 6 x 6 paper pad and I believe the dark navy is from the Basic Grey pb&j 6 x 6 paper pad. The card is a very simple design and construction. The papers from the Second City Collection look very futuristic and very much like a lot of the Halo HUD & menu designs.

I don’t think I need to bore you with how the card was constructed as I think any crafter would be able to figure it out by looking at it.

The quote, ‘Never Surrender’ I hand wrote with my versa mark clear embossing ink pen and I used white embossing powder and heat set it. On the inside I wrote another quote to further inspire my brother: Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength – Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Unfortunately my older brother has been cursed with bad luck and a Murphy’s law kind of life so I think it’s important to remind people, especially our loved ones, to keep on keeping on.

Jakob’s birthday present, a series of paintings of each of his dogs, was unfortunately not completed on time. If you’re interested and you missed out on the previous posts, you can check out the individual posts for each pet portrait by clicking on the name of the dog.

Toby – (center)

Ralph – (top left)

Jazz – (bottom left)

Fred – (bottom right)

Jaeger – (top right)

Above is after I decided I would have Toby as a larger canvas when I had completed Jazz and Fred and had begun work on Jaeger. I had also drawn the sketch of Ralph. I really liked the alignment of having Toby’s big rectangle canvas in the center surrounded by Jakob’s other dogs.

Another photo showing the progress – these I was taking to try and motivate me to continue. Like saying, ‘look at how awesome this is going to be when it’s finished!’ For this photo and the rest of the photos, I had changed the arrangement of Fred and Jaeger.

This one shows all four surrounding dogs complete with only Toby waiting to be finished.

And finally! All five pet portraits painted and complete. Toby really does look fantastic. I originally wasn’t going to do a background for any of them. Now with Toby looking really majestic, I’m having thoughts about putting backgrounds on the rest of the portraits.

Let me know what you think in comments below.

Valentines Day Card Making – Basic Grey pb&j & Kelly Purkey Mon Ami Pattern Paper

Valentines Day has been and gone all too quickly. Unfortunately I was working that night and my boyfriend and a football meet that lasted all day so we didn’t do anything special for the day. While I was at work when it was quiet I made a Valentines Day card so that a coworker could give his pregnant girlfriend something nice. That’s the downside with night shift work, it’s hard to get out to the shops to buy cards or presents, so he was grateful he could still manage something special.

He started me off in the right direction by telling me her favourite colour. So I started flipping through my Basic Grey 6 x 6 paper pads.

I decided on a floral pattern paper in blue hues from the pb&j paper pad with a complimentary plain blue paper from the Kelly Purkey Mon Ami paper pad.

I cut the floral pattern paper to fit on a standard size card base.

I cut a strip of the plain blue to use as an accent piece and anchor.

I found a third complimentary pattern paper and cut a rectangle to use as the sentiment banner.

I drew some hearts on the scrap pieces of paper then fussy cut them out.

Using foam squares I adhered them on top of each other to create some cute embellishments and add a bit of pizzazz to the card.

I adhered the floral background to the card base and adhered the plain blue stripe to the right-hand side.

Then I adhered the heart embellishments in the bottom left-hand side corner using the foam squares.

I used the versamark embossing ink pen to write the sentiment (my hand writing is atrocious) and heat set black embossing powder. The sentiment banner was adhered with foam squares also.

My coworker then filled out the inside with his message of love. Hope everyone had a special Valentines Day!